PATRICK BARTLEY, racing writer


Melbourne Racing Club Spring Media Awards, and Victoria Derby National Media Awards

Patrick Bartley won the major press award at the 2007 Melbourne Racing Club spring media awards announced at Caulfield Racecourse yesterday. Bartley won for his article headlined "Bon voyage" - the story of trainer Bon Hoystead as told through his daughter, Margaret McDonald.

Bartley was also highly commended at the Victoria Derby national media awards for a story on John Hawkes, "Hawkes and the chicken men", published on Derby Day.

November 2007
"Bon Voyage"

Margaret McDonald will be reliving happy and sad times when Weekend Hussler races tomorrow, writes Patrick Bartley.

BY PATRICK BARTLEY, RACING WRITER

MARGARET McDonald remembers seeing her father, trainer Bon Hoysted, stride through the front door of his Epsom home beaming like she had never seen him do before.
"We shared a really close father-daughter relationship, but this night I couldn't put a finger on why he was so elated," she said at Caulfield this week.
"He sat us down and said, 'I have a horse that galloped this morning that I've waited a lifetime to get. He's not a horse that I'm going to have to make or build. He's a ready-made horse'."
Hoysted's vision was spot-on. The horse, a strong-willed sprinter named Manikato, took Australian racing by storm and won the 1978 Golden Slipper.
"This was something else," McDonald said. "We had this fantastic horse that dad had paid just $5000 for and we had arrived.
"He always said to me, 'understand your horse, spend as much time with them as you can and if you listen hard enough, they'll tell you if they're hurting'.
"To win a Golden Slipper was the beginning of a dream that was about to unfold - we thought."
The tragic twist to the story is that just a month after Manikato had stamped himself as one of Australia's most decorated two-year-olds, Bon Hoysted died at the age of 58.
"We'd had the highs of Manikato and suddenly we were in a trough dealing with grief," his daughter said.
Manikato was sent to Margie McDonald's uncle, Bob Hoysted, who aimed the then three-year-old for the Caulfield Guineas in the spring of 1978.
"It just wasn't the same," she said. "We were grieving, we were struggling, and to see him win the Guineas left us so hollow and confused.
"Sometimes I reflect on how we ever got out of that mindset, but we did. Racing has that knack of shaking you back to reality," she said.
Tomorrow at Caulfield, McDonald's husband Ross has the chance to win a Guineas for his wife and himself when Weekend Hussler starts in The Age Caulfield Guineas.
The three-year-old gelding is an odds-on chance and, according to form judges, is the best of good things. That is a statement Margie McDonald has heard too often.
"He's still got to win," she said. "He's got the potential and the ability, but I've found after four decades in races you never count your chickens."
Memories of her father continued as McDonald, 58, recalled how, in March 1963 she stormed off Caulfield racecourse, incensed at being sent home to dress "appropriately" by stipendiary stewards.
Stewards told the 14-year-old that a new dress from a fashionable chain of shops could not be worn in the mounting yard on a city track. She could only wear a white shirt, tie, coat and jodhpurs.
She sought solace with her father, a man who loved his horses and his family and was one of the most popular men in racing. He had not inherited the dictatorial ways of his father, Fred, a leading trainer and a tough, uncompromising man who ruled his stable and family in a military manner.
Bon Hoysted wanted to teach his daughter the new way, a way that would give her so many insights into the horse, instead of being cast aside for mundane duties such as washing and ironing.
"He just laughed," McDonald said of the dress incident. " He said, 'Margie, things will change. I know it's tough now, but if that's all you've got to worry about, things are going pretty well'.
"Dad had that effect on people. He could calm you, see reason, and I think that translated into his horsemanship."
Hoysted was born with a disability. His neck did not grow and in 1931 a group of surgeons met in Melbourne to examine the boy after his third birthday.
"They met and looked at dad's upper body from every conceivable angle," McDonald said. "They told his parents that a small chance of the neck growing normally could occur if two nerves in the region were cut."
But the risks of the operation were too great. Hoysted, with the help of his parents, emerged with a resilience and positive nature to overcome the disability. At 15 he was practically running his father's thriving stable, reaping little credit for his achievements. The Mentone youngster decided to go it alone.
After a decade of struggling with tried horses and cheap dealings he made a name for himself as a second-hand dealer of thoroughbreds. "He prided himself on getting a horse from Horsham and winning a race in the city," McDonald said. "He got a horse with ability and managed to keep it up so long and win so many races, and he reaped his reward from a good day punting on that same horse."
By the 1970s Hoysted was training at Epsom. Margaret had married horse breaker Ross McDonald and the pair trained a small but formidable team of horses. "Dad really respected Ross," she said. "He was a friend and dad could trust him. Any horse he sent to him to be broken in would come back well-mouthed and ready to go."
McDonald said she had seen the changes in horse training more intimately than most with her father, husband, and son, Clinton, training.
Of the new breed she said: "I hope they never turn out like my grandfather. He used to groom the horses every day . . . after the staff had finished grooming them one Christmas day he arrived with a white glove and found a mark on the hind quarters of one of the two-year-olds and demanded the staff re-groom every horse.
"Those days, fortunately, are long gone, but I'll never forget walking out of the coronary unit at St Vincent's an hour after dad had died and one of the nurses said to me, 'your father had a message. I don't know quite what it means, but he said tell Ross to give the horses a quiet day tomorrow'."
Not so for Weekend Hussler this tomorrow, which is shaping as an emotional day for Margaret McDonald.
"Dad will be with me on Saturday," she said. "The horse carries the Hoysted stable colours that Ross has taken over and this time I can probably enjoy a Caulfield Guineas after what the race felt like all those years ago".

Published: Friday, October 12, 2007